In this newly revised third edition of Native America: A History, Michael Leroy Oberg and Peter Jakob Olsen-Harbich deliver a thoroughly updated, incisive narrative history of North America’s Indigenous peoples. The authors aim to provide readers with an overview of the principal themes and developments in Native American history, from the first peopling of the continent to the present, by following twelve Native communities whose histories serve as exemplars for the common experiences of North America’s diverse Indigenous nations. This textbook centers the history of Native America and presents it as flowing through channels distinct from those of the United States. This is a history of nations not merely acted upon, but rather of those that have responded to, resisted, ignored, and shaped the efforts of foreign powers to control their story.
This new edition has been comprehensively updated in all its chapters and expanded with wider coverage of the most significant recent events and trends in Native America through the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Native America: A History, Third Edition also includes: - A survey of pre-Columbian North American traditions and the various ways in which these traditions were deployed to comprehend and respond to the arrival of Europeans. - In-depth examinations of how Native nations navigated the challenges of colonialism and fought to survive while marginalized behind the frontiers of European empires and the United States. - Nuanced analyses of how Indigenous peoples balanced the economic benefits offered by assimilation with the cultural and political imperatives of maintaining traditions and sovereignty. - An accessible presentation of American tribal law and the strategies used by Native nations to establish government-to-government relationships with the United States despite the repeated failures of that state to honor its legal commitments.
Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students seeking a broad historical treatment of Indigenous peoples in the United States, Native America: A History, Third Edition will earn a place in the libraries of anyone with an interest in seeking an authoritative and engaging survey of Native American history.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Maps
Introduction
1 Myths and Legends
The Beginning of the World
Rules for Living
Bears
2 Worlds New and Worlds Old
The Fundamental Violence of Discovery
Paths of Destruction
Tsenacommacah
The Mohegans
New Worlds
3 Living in the New World
Mourning Wars
Colonizing the Mohegans
The Word of God
Colonizing the Powhatans
Forging the Covenant Chain
Indigenous Peoples and the French in a World of War
The Pueblos’ Revolt
Horses
The Grand Settlement
The Cherokees
Indigenous Peoples and the Nature of Empires
4 Indigenous Peoples and the Fall of European Empires
Penn’s Woods
The Potawatomis in a World of Conflicting Empires
Settlement and Unsettledness
Life at the Western Door
Behind the Frontier
The Great Wars for Empire
The Proclamation and the Indian Boundary Line
Indians and Empires
5 Indigenous Peoples and the Rise of a New American Empire
Change in the Far Western World
Declarations of Independence
The Revolution and the Longhouse
Cherokees and Chickamaugas
England’s Allies and the Confederation
The Six Nations and the Empire State
Confederations
A New Order for the Ages
1794, A Year of Consequence
The White Man’s Republic
6 Relocations and Removes
The Mohegans’ Struggle for Independence
The Rise of the Prophet
Handsome Lake
Dispossessing the Senecas
Pioneers and Exiles
Removing from the Missions
The Optimism of the Imperialist
7 The Invasion of the Great West
Pledges and Promises
Settling In and Settling Down
Homesteaders
Concentration
The Indians’ Civil War
Peace and War
8 The Age of Dispossession
“Conform To It or Be Crushed By It”
Spelatch
Ghost Dancers
The Assault on Indian Identity
Living Under the New Regime
The New Life in the Indian Territory
The Crows and the Life on the Northern Plains
Indigenous Peoples in the Eastern United States
A Movement for Reform
The Origins of the Indian New Deal
9 New Deals and Old Deals
Reforming Indian Policy
Indigenous Peoples and World War II
Termination and the Coalminer’s Canary
Cleaning the Slate
New Frontiers
Red Power
10 Sovereign Nations and Colonized Nations
The Importance of 1978
The State of the Nations
Exercising Sovereignty
Toward the Future
Bibliography
Index
